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TWO WAYS n RELIGION. 



BY 

REV. F. D. HUNTINGTON, D. D., 

EECTOR OP EMMANUEL CHURCH, BOSTON. 



BOSTON: 
E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY, 

atiuxcij 3Soofestore, 

106 WASHINGTON STREET, 

1862. - 



TWO WAYS n EELIGIOK 






//J" 

REY. F. D: HUNTINGTON, D. D., 

EECTOR OF EMMANUEL CHURCH, BOSTON. 



BOSTON: 
P. BUTTON AND COMPANY, 
<S:turcI) 3Soofestore, 

106 WASHINGTON STREET, 
1862. 






RIVE II SIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON. 



1 



TWO WAYS IN RELIGION. 



I 



Sy^ The simplest way of introducing the subject of 
^ these pages is to repeat, in substance, an inquiry 
^that was lately sent to the writer by a worshipper 
in his congregation. There would be no propriety in 
this use of a private communication if there were 
not good evidence that the same question here pro- 
posed is working, earnestly and anxiously, in many 
other minds all around us. The religious history 
of this part of the country would have brought it up, 
sooner or later, even if there were not still more 
general tendencies operating in modern society, in- 
vestigation, and criticism, to occasion it. In relig- 
ious opinion, action and reaction follow each other by 
laws of the mind, much as they do in the physical 
kingdoms by laws of matter. The great truths, 
both natural and revealed, stand fast. The primi- 
tive creed, drawn directly from the Gospel, outlasts 
all the currents and counter-currents of human in- 
terpretation, like the rock where seas meet. Jesus 
Christ, the living Rock, is the same, yesterday, to- 
day, and forever. And when, from any causes, — 
such as certainly existed in New England half a cen- 
tury ago, — a large number of sincere and thought- 



ful people have been moved away from the sure 
foundations of a scriptural faith, it is to be reason- 
ably expected that they, or at least their children, 
should be moved back again, by the wisdom of ex- 
perience, by the demonstrated inefficiency and fail- 
ure of their speculative systems, and above all, by 
the yearning of their deeper life after truth which 
impatience at extreme dogmatism, or party-feel- 
ing, has long hidden from them ; — by the longing 
of their hearts, under the touch of the Holy Spirit, 
for satisfactions found only in the old and everlast- 
ing doctrines of the Church of Christ. I take the 
question about to be proposed, therefore, as the 
expression of no single individual, but as the actual 
interrogatory of many, many souls, honest for the 
most part, troubled with doubt, seeking light : some 
of them having never shaped their difficult}^ into 
language, and some of them too timid or diffident 
to tell it out, if they have. 

Perhaps I may venture to hope, besides, for the 
interest and sympathy of some readers of a settled 
evangelical faith, on one of these two considerations: 
either that their gratitude may be kindled into new 
vigor for such a blessing as a faith that is settled ; 
or that they may possibly furnish themselves with 
clearer persuasions, and stronger sympathies, for 
encountering those who have not found that bless- 
ing, — such sceptical spirits as the circumstances of 
a restless time and place have made to differ from 
them. For, indeed, what plainer errand has any 
friend and follower of the Lord Jesus, than to bring 
wanderers into his Fold ? 



The case presented is that of several young per- 
sons who are described substantially as follows : 
They seem to desire to lead a Christian life on 
earth, and they certainly desire a life of happiness 
in heaven. But their views of the first are vague, 
and their expectations of the last very uncertain. 
The religious instruction they are in the habit of 
receiving points out to them their moral faults, ex- 
posing their temptations, and exhorting them, as far 
as they can, to overcome evil with good. This is 
done seriously, and under the authority of texts from 
the Bible. They are told to pray, and to cultivate 
religious sentiments. God is represented to them 
as a kind Father ; Jesus Christ as a w^ise Teacher 
sent from God, and as a perfect example for men to 
imitate and love. Sometimes Jesus is called their 
' Saviour ; sometimes the best of many Saviours. 
When they do wrong they must be sorry for it and 
try to do so no more. No particular light is thrown 
on the debt and guilt of their violations of God's law. 
Not much is said to them about the future ; little or 
nothing of future retribution. They are urged to 
unfold and exercise their nobler faculties ; to rever- 
ence their nature ; to bring out the good that is in 
them ; to be generous, just, and kind in all their rela- 
tions with the world ; and to devise measures of char- 
ity and mercy for the ignorant and the poor. They 
say, "This is plain preaching; it seems to be what we 
need and can understand : why is not this enough ? " 
Yet they evidently have a suspicion, if not some- 
thing stronger than a suspicion, that it is not enough ; 
for they confess that they are dissatisfied ; that other 



Christians, under another kind of teaching, have 
both a power and a joy which they long for, but have 
not. When spoken to of " faith in Christ," of " re- 
demption through his atoning sacrifice," of " the 
peace of a pardoned soul," they reply that this is 
mystical and strange to them ; they have not been 
taught so ; it is beyond their comprehension. The 
question then is. What has the Church of Christ, 
in doctrine and worship, to offer to persons so de- 
scribed ? 

To that question our first impulse is to respond, 
with the apostle, " Much, every way." And this 
fulness of answer will be felt in a degree almost 
oppressive, by any one who, having himself slowly 
lived through years of the same experimental con- 
flict, between outward influences on the one side 
and the constraining testimony of the Divine word 
speaking inwardly on the other, has it now for the 
ever-present and overmastering prayer of a thou- 
sand indestructible affections in him, that the former 
brethren of that '' Israel," still struggling under the 
law, with the veil on their hearts, — this one and 
that one, individual friends that he mentions daily 
in his prayers, who lack only this one thing, — may 
look, and see, and enter in, and dwell, — look unto 
Him beside whom there is no Saviour, — see him 
crucified as the propitiation for their own sins, enter 
in by the Door, and dwell in the Fold. 

Beginning with some considerations lying a little 
less near the centre of the subject, we will come to 
the vital part of the matter by successive steps. 

The first remark, then, suggested by the terms 



of the question, is that the difficulty here described 
has been practically demonstrated not to be insur- 
mountable. I speak of it as a difficulty, and not as 
a depravity. There is a depravity which takes the 
form and uses the pretexts of unbelief, no doubt. 
But I am not able and not willing to persuade my- 
self that most of those here referred to are con- 
sciously and wickedly resisting the truth. I cannot 
be blind to what is lovely in their dispositions and 
earnest in their lives. I prefer to think of them, I 
must think of them, not as perpetrating a crime, 
but as losing a glorious privilege ; not as lov- 
ing darkness, but as mournfully missing the light. 
And their difficulty, I say, is one that has been con- 
quered. This is encouraging. Not a few earnest 
hearts and clear minds, in almost any Christian 
community, will be found to have travelled through 
it, and to have come out of it into sunshine and 
peace. From one cause or another, the same ques- 
tion has started itself in their thoughts, and would not 
be put down. They have said. Is this, that I have 
been accustomed to hear, the whole of the blessed 
Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ ; 
or is something vital and essential to it left out ? A 
sensual, profligate Prodigal, I may not have been, 
nor outwardly scandalous in my life, but a Prodigal 
conscience and heart I certainly have had, — impure, 
unholy, unthankful, selfish, lost. And when I am 
told to honor my nature, and develop it, and be 
good, and then God will accept me for my good- 
ness, — what is it, to my weak will, my disordered 
blood, my ever-failing aspirations and my hungry 



8 

heart, but husks ? Perhaps such persons have, on 
some occasion, heard a different voice, and recog- 
nized it as a voice from Heaven, speaking to them. 
Perhaps misfortune, or remorse, or some other touch 
of the Holy Spirit that awakens, has burnt into their 
breasts such sentences as these : " Arise, and depart, 
for this is not your rest." " Who shall deliver me 
from the body of this death ? " " There is an altar 
whereof they have no right to eat which serve only 
this tabernacle of the moral law." " By grace are 
ye saved, through faith, and that not of yourselves." 
'' What shall I do to be saved, wdth this great salva- 
tion?" Such thoughts, once started, were not suf- 
fered to die out. Sometimes by slow and sometimes 
by swifter steps of progress, the seeking soul has 
pressed forward, till what was lacking was supplied ; 
the Spirit's intercessions were not in vain ; the rest 
was found ; the Deliverer appeared ; the Good Shep- 
herd has followed this w^andering sheep through 
waste and wild, and found it, and laid it on his 
shoulders where the cross once lay, and has brought 
it home. There is joy in Heaven, and joy in one 
new heart at least on earth. All this has been. It 
is a real history, a practical example, and not very 
uncommon. We say, then, to the inquirer before 
us. Be not disheartened. Your case is not des- 
perate, nor so peculiar as you think. Other hearts, 
weary and perplexed as yours, have found their 
path, have kept it, have come to the heavenly rest, 
and have knelt down with tears of thankful joy 
at the foot of the cross. Some men are prodigals 
with their senses, and some w^ith their minds ; but 



9 

there is the same Father's House for them all : 
and there is one Hand, — the only one under Heaven 
merciful and mighty enough to bring them there, — 
the Hand that is pierced with the nails, open still 
in bounty, and strong to save unto the uttermost 
all them that will come. 

A second remark is that, in an inquiry so solemn 
and so responsible as this, large allowance must be 
made for the bias of early education, both by the 
inquirer himself, and by the Christian friendship that 
undertakes to help him. If he hears, for instance, 
a kind of religious phraseology that is strong but 
strange to him, or expressions that he has always 
been taught to dislike, he will have the candor to 
discriminate between prejudice and conviction ; he 
will acknowledge that if such expressions as the 
" Cross of Christ," " being born again," '' being jus- 
tified by faith," " the hope of salvation," " pardon," 
" redemption," " sanctification," should be found to be 
eminently scriptural expressions, then the circum- 
stance of his having been trained to disrelish them 
will not empty them of their meaning. 

Something ought undoubtedly to be said on the 
other side, too. The truth of the Gospel is made 
needlessly offensive to some classes of people, by 
artificial and technical language, unusual except in 
particular religious circles. Cant is hateful, because 
it carries insincerity with it. But there are modes 
of religious expression, not scriptural, which are 
sincere, and yet are distasteful. They sometimes 
do more to check the progress of those that are 
coming to the truth than the doctrines they are 



10 

intended to convey. I apprehend that the full ex- 
tent of this difficulty is not appreciated by those 
that have not been made to feel it by experience. 
While a judicious teacher or counsellor will remem- 
ber this, and try to avoid placing the obstacle in 
the inquirer's way, the inquirer himself will care- 
fully see to it that, however he may treat language, 
those holy and momentous realities which the lan- 
guage was used to signify, are not to be neglected. 
So, if he finds himself coming slowly up to the con- 
fession of some great doctrine^ or if the words that 
convey it sound not quite naturally to him at first, 
he will remember that, now the days of miracle are 
passed, the laws of the human mind are not set back 
by violence, or suspended, and that, though all his 
tastes and impressions may not be revolutionized in 
a moment, yet in time the whole nature may open 
itself to the light of the new morning that has risen 
upon it, as leaves and flowers open to the sun ; and 
thus many of the old, holy, evangelic terms, which 
have been gathering power and preciousness through 
the Christian ages, will become as the native speech 
of this new-born life in Christ. 

Still another preliminary consideration is this. 
You plead, against those teachings which are com- 
monly called evangelical, and w^hich have been 
commonly received in the Christian Church, that 
they are not intelligible. That is to say, your un- 
derstanding is not able to take in all that they seem 
to signify. You do not see, with your mind, why 
this doctrine or that should be true, as it is laid 
down. Of many things presented to you in relig- 



11 

ious instruction, especially of such moral duties as 
belong plainly to human welfare and the good order 
of society, you can comprehend the reasons with 
considerable satisfaction. But not so of these pecu- 
liar doctrines of the Gospel. Their reasons, if they 
have any, lie out of your reach. You cannot trace 
out their relations, nor perceive how they can be, as 
they are declared to be. And therefore you claim 
that you are at liberty to let them pass by as incred- 
ible, or unimportant. Being out of reach, it is use- 
less to reach after them. 

To this two or three statements, which may pos- 
sibly have been overlooked, are to be offered in reply. 
For example, many things appear both unintelligible 
and incredible, simply because they are unfamiliar. 
A native of the tropics, of good natural inteUigence, 
tells you he cannot understand how water should 
every year, without having anything mixed with it, 
become hard, so as to bear heavy weights, and then 
become fluent again : he will not believe what you 
tell him about it ; for water is by nature a liquid, 
and a liquid cannot be solid. Change this man's 
climate, and though he may never come to under- 
stand how^ or ybr what reasons^ the water turns to 
ice, he will admit the fact, and cease to think of it 
as unintelligible. Now, in things spiritual, we may 
move from one climate to another, and, as we move, 
what was once incredible becomes obvious as a fact. 
The science of chemistry deals with some matters 
that we can be said to understand, and some that 
we cannot understand ; but as the scholar advances 
he constantly admits a larger circle of facts as sim- 



12 

pie, which he formerly pronounced unintelligible. 
It is so in the revelations of God to the soul. 
Waiving, for the present, the question whether they 
are actually capable of being grasped by the under- 
standing or not, all objection to them on that ground 
often disappears simply because we come into the 
habit of entertaining them. This, which holds good 
of all progress in knowledge, does not prove any 
doctrine to be true ; but it explains how it may not 
appear intelligihle, yet be true notwithstanding. We 
may and we do receive, and even comprehend as 
facts^ some things of which we can never compre- 
hend the reasons : i. e. we cannot answer the ques- 
tions how and why they are as they are. A mind 
that has been educated in a contrary belief, or a 
mind that has never been accustomed to ponder it 
impartially, and has never made a thorough study 
of the Bible-teaching upon it, may object to the great 
doctrine of the Trinity as incomprehensible ; while 
minds of the same clearness and energy, — no more 
and no less, — trained to receive it, urge no such 
objection, and feel none. The mere plea of incom- 
prehensibleness is not valid. 

Take one step farther, and this will be made 
clearer still. We are all constantly surrounded by 
operations of nature which are in themselves just as 
inexplicable, just as incomprehensible, just as much 
a matter of absolute mystery as any doctrine sub- 
mitted to our faith by the articles of the Church. 
The manner in which the mind communicates its 
motive-power to the body, so as to produce the sim- 
plest motion of the hand or foot, is utterly beyond 



13 

the reach of the human understanding. All the 
.science of the schools, and all the thinking of the 
first minds of the world, have done absolutely noth- 
ing to solve that mystery. Yet, as a fact, it is, of 
course, universally admitted. So the principle of 
life is yet a secret to the profoundest investigators 
of the world. What brings a tree from an acorn ? 
What is hght ? Why do different substances reflect 
different rays of that light ? What is sleep ? What 
wakes the solitary sleeper ? These are questions 
— and there are hundreds like them — to which the 
intelHgence of man furnishes no hint of an answer. 
We know them as facts, by our senses, or by testi- 
mony. We know nothing of their causes. Nobody 
is absurd enough to deny them ; yet, if we ask how, 
or why, or whence they are as they are^ no mind can 
tell. The same statement would hold good of many 
religious truths which are readily admitted by those 
who refuse to believe the peculiar doctrines of the 
Gospel system. The Being of God ; his Omni- 
presence ; his foreknowledge ; or even the existence 
of the soul after death : take any one of these into 
your thought : dwell upon it ; exhaust your mind 
upon it ; though you may think to be very rational 
in your creed, you will have to confess that the mat- 
ter is completely beyond your comprehension ; as 
really so as the Trinity of God, or Christ's atone- 
ment, or the spiritual value of a sacrament. Yet 
you believe it. So, also, of the course of God's 
providence. It is full of mysteries. There are 
appointments in it which you cannot reconcile with 
each other, with what you do know, or with your 



14 

own understanding of what would be best. In its 
strange order, the lovely are cut off, and the unprof- 
itable and vile live on ; stout arms that others leaned 
upon are withered, and stout hearts that warmed 
households and neighborhoods with their charity 
stop beating ; justice is trampled on in the streets ; 
liberal men have empty hands ; tyranny triumphs ; 
innocent infants writhe or waste away with pain. 
Yet you probably believe in the goodness of God's 
providence, nevertheless. The conclusion is, that 
even the Deist, or the rationalist, holds many things 
as true, as facts, which are never compassed by his 
understanding. He has, then, no right to reject any 
doctrine of the Church simply because his under- 
standing is not equal to it. Observe, we have not 
yet touched the question, on what ground these 
Gospel doctrines are to be received as facts. We 
are only meeting antecedent and incidental difficul- 
ties in some minds. 

But furthermore : What real foundation is there 
for the notion that all that we receive as certain 
truth, must be received through the understanding ? 
You admit that man has not only a bodily and a 
mental but also a spiritual nature. You admit that 
he has at least a capacity for a spiritual life ; some 
powers, faculties, or parts, in him, which are capa- 
ble, under certain conditions, of being aroused and 
trained into a spiritual character in communion with 
the spiritual world. You admit that you can feel, as 
well as think ; that you can trust, as well as calcu- 
late ; that you can love, as well as learn ; that 
you can reverence, as well as reason ; that there 



15 

is such a thing as faith ; and that this power or 
faculty of faith in you has certain objects outside 
of you, on earth or in heaven, to which it fastens. 
Now, what cause have we to say that this spiritual 
power, or faculty, shall be exercised only by per- 
mission and by way of the intellect, and not direct- 
ly, from itself, as an independent power, under the 
will and control of the Creator ? No cause at all. 
We have no more right to say it than we have to 
say that, in the organism of the body, the eye shall 
not move unless the foot moves, or that the heart 
shall not beat when the brain sleeps, or that the 
faculty of memory shall never be used except by 
permission of the faculty of imagination. Who has 
authorized you to assert that the light of God's truth 
shall not come into the soul, except by consent of a 
process of the understanding ? You might as rea- 
sonably say that for a room having three windows 
the light of the sun shall pass in only by one of 
them. To say so is to make the understanding an 
extortioner on the King's highway, and the reason 
a usurper in the King's country. It is to license 
one of the coordinate powers of human nature to 
play the tyrant over another. Doubtless, the under- 
standing is to be faithfully employed in the service 
of religion. It is one of the chief and noble instru- 
ments by which the facts and truths of religion, in 
the Bible and history, are put into our possession, 
and made practical for good. But it is not a gate- 
keeper between heaven and earth to shut off direct 
revelations and gifts coming from the Spirit of God 
to the spirit in man. 



16 

So speaks the Scripture eniphatieally. Does it 
not declare that spiritual things are spiritually dis- 
cerned ? It informs us again and again that the 
natural mind cannot receive these glorious and 
blessed realities ; but that they are foolishness to ,it.- 
It teaches us not only that it is faith which saves 
us, but that this faith is a special and distinct action 
of the soul. It says, " Only believe." It shows us 
that the Saviour called and gathered his first dis- 
ciples, not by engaging them in any intellectual pro- 
cess or exercise ; not by proposing to satisfy their 
understandings on this or that point of his redemp- 
tion, but by offering himself to their affections, and 
assuring them that " with the heart man believeth 
unto righteousness." He constituted the beginnings 
of his Church of such simple hearts, such trusting 
souls, without learning, without logical acuteness or 
discipline. He gifted them with the power of in- 
sight into the deep things of the kingdom, and fired 
them with holy determinations. When he gave 
them the Gospel, it was not in the form of propo- 
sitions to be demonstrated, but in promises to be 
received, and in his own suffering, dying, ever-living 
Person, to be loved. 

Accordingly, it has been found, ever since, that 
under this impartial Christian dispensation^ the 
heights of Christian attainment have been equally 
accessible to people of all degrees of intellectual 
calibre and furnishing. The spiritual w^orld has 
stood just as open to the illiterate as to scholars. 
Some of the most illustrious and memorable of 
God's saints have been of the same unlettered rank 



17 

with the primitive disciples, laboring men and peas- 
ant women, sailors and slaves. And when learning 
and genius have brought with them pride and self- 
confidence, God has " hid these things from the wise 
and prudent," and revealed them to those who, in 
knowledge, were but babes. 

Indeed, it is not at all certain but there is a closer 
connection than we commonly think between spir- 
itual wisdom and the spiritual life. I mean that, on 
the one hand, the reluctance to receive the great doc- 
trines of Revelation may be caused or aggravated 
by habits of prejudice, by complacent scepticism, by 
the blinding passions and sins which have been to 
the spiritual eye what the disease called " cataract " 
is to the eye of the body, clouding its transparency, 
and destroying the vision. So that while God keeps 
back some elements of truth in mystery, by reason 
of the necessary infirmity of our knowledge, because 
he is infinite and we are finite, — and others, as a 
trial of trust in him, that we may learn humility and 
check the arrogance of our self-Avill, others are cov- 
ered with a veil which we ourselves have drawn by 
our earthly and self-confident propensities. We 
have looked down and looked at ourselves so long, 
that when we look up we can see nothing. And 
then, if it is our own sin, or our unwillingness to 
believe, which has hidden the high doctrines of the 
Gospel from us, ought we not to be the last to urge 
their obscurity as an excuse for neglecting them ? 
For then it must be such as we are that the Apostle 
means, when he says, " If our Gospel be hid, it is 
hid to them that are lost, in whom the god of this 
2 



18 

world hath blinded the eyes of them who believe 
not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, 
who is the image of God, should shine unto them." 
Only when the heart shall turn believingly to the 
Lord, " the veil shall be taken away ; " and then 
" we all, with open face, beholding, as in a glass, the 
glory of the Lord, shall be changed into the same 
image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of 
the Lord." 

How right it is, then, that the Gospel of Recon- 
ciliation, having the blessed and inestimable gift of 
eternal life, by faith, to offer to sinful and perishing 
men, should still stand and cry to men, to the old 
and the young, to the learned and the simple, to 
every sorrowing and seeking heart under the sun, 
" Only believe." Abandon the effort to climb to 
heaven by your wisdom. Let your doubts rest. 
Hold out no longer in resisting the best blessing in 
heaven or earth. 

Having thus cleared the way by showing that we 
are not at liberty to set aside spiritual doctrines 
merely on the ground that our understanding cannot 
comprehend them, we are ready to go on to the more 
important inquiry, — which is the principal point of 
the subject, — why we should not only decline to set 
aside, but should receive heartily into our faith the 
grand doctrine of redemption from a ruined and lost 
estate by the sacrifice of a Divine Saviour, which the 
Gospel has once proclaimed, and which the Church is 
ever reproclaiming to the world. Laying off all the 
prepossessions of human pride, and forgetting the 
limitations of that small province that we call our 



19 

knowledge, we are to receive these doctrines, in the 
first place, because Revelation announces them. 

Think a moment of that word Revelation, The 
very term itself carries with it a strong presump- 
tion that something is here to be given us which 
reason, or any process of learning, could not give 
us. If one of us were to be standing on a height 
of land surrounded by varied and extensive scenery 
in the dense darkness of a cloudy night, not able to 
see the form of his own hand, and if a sudden sweep 
of the elements should drive the night and the clouds 
away, pouring instantaneous light over every object 
and feature of the landscape, out to the clear, sharp 
rim of the horizon, that would be a revelation to 
the senses. It corresponds to the Revelation made 
to the soul, in the Scriptures, by the Holy Spirit. 
K we dug up or worked out the truth which the 
Bible gives us, by our own faculties, as a matter of 
knowledge, we could not speak of it as a Revela- 
tion. What we gain in that way is acquired. 
What God lets down to us from above, or directly 
uncovers to us, when we only stand in a receptive, 
willing attitude, is revealed. In learning, or in ac- 
quiring earthly knowledge, we use text-books, trea- 
tises, rules of calculation or reasoning, aids to mem- 
ory. But the Bible is more than a treatise, or 
formulary. It is a direct uncovering of the spirit- 
ual world, a direct opening of the mysteries of 
God's redeeming love, a direct declaration of his 
will. If it went about to enlighten us by learning, 
it would be an instrument of education, and men's 
minds would judge it. But it goes about to pour 



20 

light on us which is from beyond all our learning 
and our powers, and so it judges us. Doubtless 
there are precepts, there is knowledge, there is rea- 
soning, there is education, contained in the Bible, for 
it is a wonderful and manifold Book ; and, as all 
the leading philosophers of later ages have had to 
admit, education could have done but little without 
it. Yet its peculiarity, — what distinguishes it from 
all other books, — is that it directly reveals, on Di- 
vine authority, what is beyond and above our faculty 
of knowledge ; what we are to see by the eye of 
faith and accept in our religious conviction, without 
the support of the senses, and without any demon- 
stration to the mind. 

I said that this inspired Revelation of God de- 
clares to us those doctrines which make the differ- 
ence between the notions of a class described at the 
beginning and the faith of the Gospel ; in other 
words, the doctrines of the evangelical catholic 
creed. It declares God the Father, invisible ; God 
the Son, who hath redeemed mankind by the sacri- 
fice of himself, when we were all far gone from the 
original righteousness, lost in the fault and corrup- 
tion of our nature ; and God the Holy Ghost, who 
sanctifieth and comforteth all the people of God. 

And now I call upon every person who reads 
these words, whatever the past belief or prejudice 
may have been, to take the Scriptures up afresh, 
to look through them with simple, candid eyes, and 
say if one jot less than this is revealed on those 
pages. Can you get these doctrines away from the 
Bible, except by altering and accommodating plain 



21 

language ; modifying here and omitting there ; ex- 
plaining out some things, or explaining in others ? 
Nay, must you not confess it is a very significant 
circumstance, that the minds which deny these doc- 
trines are the minds which are most forward to 
take the Bible to pieces, most anxious to change its 
terms and to leave large portions of it neglected, 
most careful to weaken the claim of Inspiration, 
and to set up distinctions between one portion of it 
and another ? Why is this, — why is it, — unless 
there is felt to be some contradiction between the 
denial of these doctrines and the Word of God as 
it stands ? Be sure, there must have been some 
human opinion against which the Bible is found to 
stand opposed, when men begin to question its au- 
thority, and to run their critical knife between one 
member of the living whole and another, leaving 
only disjointed extracts of either Testament. 

But take up that Book just as it reads, whole, 
unmutilated, unperverted ; just as it was before ir- 
reverent hands began to tamper with it and to shape 
it to human systems ; just as it is, now that the best 
scholarship and the most thorough investigation 
have spent their strength upon it ; just as it ever 
shall be, when speculating innovators and pretend- 
ers in science have done their worst, and have been 
buried with its sublime sentences repeated over 
their graves. Take it up, with no prejudgment, 
and read, and ponder, and pray. What do you 
find ? Two continuous lines of history and reve- 
lation. There is a history of things done on earth ; 
and there is a history of things done in heaven but 



22 

done for the earth. There is a revelation of the 
creation, the transgression, the fall, the recovery, 
the sanctification of man ; and there is a revelation 
of the character, the covenants, the Providence, the 
prophecy, the Incarnation, the redemptive mercy, 
the spiritual influence and power, and the everlast- 
ing reign of God. These together are seen result- 
ing in a visible kingdom of Christ on earth, the 
beginning and preparation of an invisible kingdom, 
eternal in the heavens. This kingdom of Redemp- 
tion is the grand theme which makes the Bible one 
connected, indivisible Book. It begins to shine out 
in the first line of Genesis, and grows brighter, and 
gathers glory, till the last words reach us from 
amongst the triumphant ascriptions and hallelujahs 
of the redeemed of the New Jerusalem, in the 
Apocalypse. It binds all together. It pervades 
every part. Even the portions which seem less 
related to it, or less edifying in themselves, all take 
on dignity, and beauty, and meaning, when they 
are seen in their membership in this one glorious, 
perfect, unbroken Plan. 

On the human side, man is seen to be created 
upright, but seeks out wicked inventions ; he goes 
astray speaking lies ; he lusts, murders, and trans- 
mits disordered blood ; he tries helplessly to save him- 
self, but tries in vain, till a Power of Sacrifice reaches 
down to him. Still he plunges away even from that, 
till his condition is that described in the opening 
of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, and seen in 
all the wretched race when the Savior's advent 
was announced. Then, in the Mediator, the full and 



23 

sufficient Sacrifice was prepared. All the old sacri- 
fices and ceremonies began to unfold their typical 
and prophetic meaning. It was seen that the 
world had been slowly getting ready, by Law and 
Prophets, by sin and sorrow, for that advent, — ready 
for its Lord. He against whom all the terrible 
transgression had been committed, had a way to 
pardon and deliver ; and that way was the Cross 
of a suffering Redeemer, God manifested in dying 
flesh, taking our iniquities upon him that we might 
live. Herein was love. To believe in that love 
was the only real salvation. The Old Testament 
is full of the law, which was a schoolmaster to 
bring us up unto Christ. The New Testament is 
full of the grace whereby God in Christ comes down 
to us, and together they are our Gospel. Together, 
they are the two chapters of the one great story of 
man's journey from Eden and the Fall, by Mount 
Sinai and the Law, to Calvary, and thence to the 
innumerable company, the Church of the First-born, 
in the eternal city of the Living God. Is not this 
the Bible ? Does the Bible signify anything less, 
for us men, than this ? 

But again, look at the Bible as revealing to us 
the character, the counsels, and the compassion, of 
God. He is a manifested God, — God in our flesh, 
" made man," sorrowing with us, " preached unto 
the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up 
into glory." From the earliest words of the Scrip- 
ture, we begin to see signs that this is the central 
purpose of the Volume ; that it sets forth one chief 
figure, " Christ and him crucified," having all the 



24 

rest grouped around and beneath that. We see that 
the Word " was, in the beginnmg, with God, and 
was God, and that without him was nothing made 
that was made." As soon as man falls by sin, we 
begin to read of a sublime, mysterious Being to 
come, to restore the Race from that Fall ; one who 
shall be the seed of a woman, not begotten of man, 
but "of the Father before all worlds," manifested 
in the last times for us. Clearer and clearer, as the 
records go on, grow the predictions and foreshadow- 
ings of His coming. Very early a Divine appear- 
ance is spoken of, a Jehovah-angel, coming out from 
the veiled world of the Godhead, and visible for a 
moment on the plane of human life, in some great 
exigency of the Patriarchal Church, a type of the 
future Incarnation. The promises of the Deliverer, 
through Moses and the Law, become plainer and 
plainer. A vast system of sacrifices is prepared and 
kept up for ages among God's chosen and specially 
appointed people, just such as the people are able to 
bear and feel, — sacrifices of atonement which would 
have no significance or use in such a place, but as 
a holy training and preparation of the religious mind 
of the world for a more glorious and sufficient sac- 
rifice, for a " Lamb without spot," " slain from the 
foundation of the world," for a " Great High Priest 
passed once for all into the heavens," for an altar 
whereof all believers "have a right to eat," for 
" the bringing in of a better hope " than the Law 
which "made nothing perfect," and thus for a 
complete and beautiful fulfilling of all the manifold 
and wonderful figures which were shadows of good 



25 

things to come. We find Isaiah describing his 
vision of the Lord "high and lifted up, and his 
train of glory filling the Temple." Afterwards 
St. John tells us explicitly that this Lord was 
Christ. We open at Isaiah's fifty-third chapter, 
and it is a description of the suffering Messiah, 
" wounded for our transgressions," and " bruised for 
our iniquities," and "sprinkling many nations" with 
water and with blood, — a description so truthful, 
so tender and so august, that it seems to have been 
written by one standing and weeping in the very 
garden of Gethsemane, yet one w^ho sees that vis- 
age of the Son of God so "marred, more than the 
countenance of any man," that he sadly cries, 
" Who hath believed our report ? " One after an- 
other, the voices in the great line of Prophets, the 
Psalmist and the choir of holy singers, fall in, till 
the chorus of the Messianic predictions rises into 
an anthem that cheers and thrills the heart of the 
waiting world ; till it passes into the advent-hymn, 
and blends with the Bethlehem song — " Glory to 
God in the Highest," — " Unto us is born a Saviour, 
which is Christ the Lord." Then come the four 
Evangelists, with their four marvellous biographies 
of the Personage, who speaks " as man never 
spake," avers without contradiction, " I and my 
Father are one," asserts and proves in everything 
wisdom and power such as never were ascribed to 
any other than the Almighty, and promises to be 
with his people everywhere, and to answer their 
prayers forever. Nay, he absolutely affirms that 
he has " all power, both in heaven and earth." 



'26 

Thus the four records proceed, till finally they con- 
duct us up to the great consummation, to behold 
that "miracle of time, God's own sacrifice complete," 
\^^here all shadows turn to substance, all types to 
the glorious reality, and all that "Prophets and 
kings desired to see " is unveiled, just when the 
veil of the old tabernacle is rent, and the sympa- 
thizing creation shudders, and the graves of the 
Past are opened. 

If you ask for precise, literal declarations of this 
full divinity of our Lord, apart from the conclusive 
inference that no other than a Mediator, thus one 
with the Father, could achieve the needed atone- 
ment, such passages are certainly not w^anting. At 
the very opening of the Gospels, the title formally 
chosen and applied to him is " Emmanuel, which, 
being interpreted, is God with us," — a title, too, 
given to him in prophecy, in the elder Testament. 
Another Evangelist introduces his Gospel with ex- 
pressly asserting that Christ, the Word, was " in 
the beginning wath God, and was God." The same 
Evano;elist assures us that Jesus himself said he 
was before Abraham, the " I am ; " that He and the 
Father are " one," the Son to be honored even as 
the Father is honored ; and that there is absolutely 
no limit to his power, " in heaven or on earth : " 
that is, he is Omnipotent, — an attribute of God 
alone. In the most momentous hour, w^hen Christ 
is commissioning his Apostles to go and establish 
his Church and convert and baptize mankind, he 
associates his own name on co-equal terms with the 
other two, the name of the Father and of the Holy 



27 

Ghost. The Epistle to the Hebrews quotes the 
Psalms as showing the Father speaking to the Son, 
and saying ''Thy throne, O God, is forever and 
ever." St. Paul praises him as " God over all, 
blessed forever." The Apostles join the three to- 
crether with no distinction of rank in their threefold 

o 

benediction, and the heavenly hosts sing their " thrice 
Holy " to the same mysterious One. 

It may be inquired further, What need of an 
atonement for sin? Is not God a tender Father, 
and will he not forgive his child instantly on the 
child's repentance and sincere purpose of amend- 
ment ? There are two answers to this : one drawn 
from the human mind, and in itself insufficient ; the 
other drawn from the Word of God himself. 

As to the first, careful thought will disclose 
weighty reasons why our violations of God's plain 
and holy law should not be pardoned simply on 
repentance and amendment. That does not honor 
his law. Even human governments could not be 
administered on a principle so lax as that. A 
strange law that would be, which every subject 
might violate at his pleasure, without punishment, 
without any suffering anywhere set over against the 
crime, — all obligation and penalty being immedi- 
ately discharged when the criminal should begin to 
be sorry for his sin, and turn from it ! Any sound 
judge or statesman would tell you that on such a 
principle a government would be impossible. Now 
God is our tender Father, — blessed forever be that 
name ! He is also our righteous Ruler. We must 
not fix our attention exclusively on any one of the 



28 

terms that indicate his character. If we do, we 
shall receive only a partial and one-sided impression, 
and the proportions of truth will be distorted. 
Take your Bible, and examine it to see how many 
times God is there represented to us as a Lawgiver, 
a Judge, a Governor, a King, a Ruler, a Punisher. 
Fatherhood is one of his attributes or offices : but 
these names designate others equally essential. 
Nor are they inconsistent with his love. " Law 
is the mother of our peace and joy." There is 
nothing vindictive or arbitrary in the divine ap- 
pointment that affixes penalty to guiU. It is the 
highest mercy, and all our welfare, and that of the 
universe, depend upon it. Nor can we discern any 
mode by which the guilty could be forgiven and 
accepted, and yet the Divine government be upheld 
in the reverence and awe of its subjects, but by the 
suffering, " under the law," and for the sake of the 
guilty, of Him who, being "both God and man," 
and thus a true Mediator, freely gives himself up 
for us all, and dies that we may live. Besides, if 
we look only toward man, what power is there in 
heaven or earth, to draw, move, melt, and renew 
the sinful soul, like this divine Mediator, leaving all 
the painless tranquillity of heaven, " thus dying for 
us," and, " by his precious blood-shedding, obtaining 
for us the innumerable benefits " of redemption ? 
Love never proves its full and final power for us, 
till it suffers for us, and suffers all that is requisite 
for our good. 

These are the strong, yet perhaps not conclusive, 
suggestions of the Christian mind of the Church. 



29 

The moment we pass from these, however, to the 
ultimate and decisive standard of faith in God's 
Word, all room for doubt is closed up by the clear 
declaration of that Word. The question whether 
God might not grant pardon and eternal life without 
the sacrifice of the cross, is best answered by the 
fact that he has not done so, but, in his wisdom, has 
chosen another way. He has laid that way open, 
— a way of boundless mercy, sparing not his own 
Son, but freely giving him up, the Son himself as 
freely dying, that sinful man might not perish. He 
has been pleased to tell us expressly, that while this 
was done in infinite love, it was also done in the 
interest of justice, that so he might " magnify the 
law and make it honorable," — that he might at 
once "be just, and yet the justifier of them that 
believe." The wondrous sacrifice was made. The 
saving cross was reared. The precious blood was 
shed. The divine Redeemer died. Surely that 
" death and passion " could not have been a super- 
fluous offering ! 

We have already brought the Scriptural evidence 
of this down to the close of the four Gospels. 
What follows the Evangelists, of this Book of Life, 
is a constant celebration of the Mediation and 
Atonement thus made possible and actual, — a 
preaching of it to the nations, an application of it 
to the conscience and the heart, and the organizing 
of its believers into the Church under the banner of 
the Cross. Wherever you turn, in these Apostolic 
authorities, you find one subject, one faith, one 
Lord, one Baptism, one Sacrifice. They are all 



30 

" determined not to know anything but Christ, and 
him crucified," in whom " dwelleth all the fulness 
of the Godhead bodily ; " who is their Master in 
Heaven, and who with the Father and the Holy 
Ghost, is to be worshipped and glorified, one God, 
world without end. Suppose you are determined 
to test this assertion by actual experiment. You 
take the volume in hand, open to the Acts, the first 
writing after the Gospels, and you see the Apostles 
travelling earth and sea to preach a Divine Saviour, 
and founding the Church on that " Rock of Ages." 
You go on to the Epistles of St. Paul, St. Peter, 
St. James, St. John, St. Jude, and in each of them 
the redemption by a Saviour is lucidly and earnestly 
proclaimed. It is presented in every variety of 
argument and illustration. It is offered by appeals 
to every element and affection of the soul. Christ 
is the constant theme. It is " by faith " in him that 
we are "justified." He is "the propitiation for our 
sins." He is the " Intercessor." " He raiseth up 
the dead and quickeneth them." His " blood " is 
the " remission." We have peace with the Father 
by him. All that the Father does, he does. At 
his name " every knee is to bow." Love is from 
the Father, by Jesus Christ, in the Holy Ghost. 
Your eye lingers a moment at some point of the 
pages, and these are the wonderful words that stand 
there : " At that time ye were without Christ, being 
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and stran- 
gers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, 
and without God in the world. But now in Christ 
Jesus ye who sometime were far off are made nigh 



31 

by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who 
hath abolished in his flesh the law of commandments 
contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of 
twain one new man, so making peace ; and that he 
might reconcile both unto God in one body by the 
Cross. For, through him, we both have access by 
one spirit unto the Father." You are struck with 
the utter impossibility of reconciling such passages 
as these with the theory that the Gospel is a mere 
unsacrificial set of directions for forming correct 
habits, and cultivating kind or even devout dispo- 
sitions. To assure yourself further, you turn over 
the leaves, and you see this : " Having therefore, 
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the 
blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he 
hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to 
say, his flesh, and having an High Priest over the 
House of God, let us draw near with a true heart, 
in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled 
from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with 
pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our 
faith without wavering ; for he is faithful that 
promised." Once more, you wonder if all this 
unvarying proof and testimony can be one of the 
illusions of eartB and the errors of men. You 
pass on to the Apocalypse : you hearken to the 
heavenly host. You look up into the dazzling light 
of the rainbow-circled throne, the white-robed elders 
crowned with crowns of gold, the lightnings, thun- 
derings, and voices above, the seven lamps of fire 
before, and the sea of glass like crystal. You be- 
hold, and lo ! in the midst of the throne, and of the 



32 

elders, stands " a Lamb as it had been slain." 
Yet you see that the same is " the Lion of the 
tribe of Judah/' " the Root and offspring of David," 
he " that openeth and no man shutteth, and that 
shutteth and no man openeth." And when he has 
taken the Book, the four and twenty elders fall down 
before the Lamb, having every one of them harps, 
and golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers 
of saints. And they sing a new song, saying, 
"Thou art worthy to take the Book, and to open 
the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast 
redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every 
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." And 
you hear " the voice of many angels round about 
the throne, ten thousand times ten thousand and 
thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, 
' Worthy is the Lamb that' was slain to receive 
power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and 
honor, and glory, and blessing.'" 

The object of presenting this outline of Scripture 
doctrine is to set it in contrast with that view of 
the teaching of Christianity which was exhibited at 
the outset. Simply place the two side by side : 
yours, — if you adopt that, — and this of the 
Bible. I will say nothing of yours, regarded in 
itself, apart from any reference to God's Word. It 
might be good or bad, reasonable or unreasonable, 
strong or weak, effectual or futile. It, is not my 
vocation to judge it. But there is a Judge of it. 
God in his Word judges it. I only bring the two 
together, and, contrasting them, ask if they can both 
be one and the same Divine Gospel of Salvation. 



33 

You maintain that it is enough to preach a morality 
and a piet}^, which exclude the ideas of a triune - 
God, an atoning sacrifice for the pardon of sin, and 
a gracious renewal and sanctification by the per- 
sonal act of the Holy Ghost. We make our reply 
by putting into your hands the Bible. That is our 
charter. That is our authority. We have no other. 
We go not behind that. There it is, so plain that 
he who runs may read. If you ask why we want 
more than your system gives, I answer. The Maker 
of our frames knows our wants, and he has given 
us something more, and something different. If 
you ask why we preach redemption by the cross, 
we answer. Simply because God, in his Word, has 
told us there is no other way of salvation, and has 
charged us, as ambassadors for Christ, to preach it. 
And if you still venture to say that these terms, 
"justified by faith," " the grace of Christ," " pardon 
and peace by the cross," "atonement," " remission of 
sins," are strange and useless, we can only bid you 
pause once more and listen, to hear them again and 
again from the Book of Patriarchs and Prophets, 
of Psalmist and Priest, of Evangelists and Apos- 
tles, of the mighty Host worshipping in heaven, nay, 
of Him whom they worship, and then settle it in 
your own heart, whether in that controversy God 
is with you, or with his Word. 

Under this final and conclusive adjudication, do 
not all the contrary opinions and fancies of men 
become insignificant? He who, in his great con- 
descension, made a Revelation from heaven to 
earth knew what it should contain. It is for us 
3 



34 

only to give humble and hearty thanks, to believe, 
and to obey. 

At the same time, we are permitted to confirm 
our faith by reference to other impressive signs and 
seals of the truth. Supposing the inquirer is sin- 
cere and fair in his search after that truth, there 
are two confirmatory evidences which he cannot 
overlook. 

One is drawn from the facts of Christian history. 
It is beyond denial that, in the progress of our relig- 
ion, the Body of doctrines which has been here laid 
down as the characteristic and distinguishing peculi- 
arity of the Gospel, and hence called evangelical, — 
making up the substance of the catholic creeds, — 
has always, accompanied the effectual advance of the 
cause. Where zeal and energy have been, these 
doctrines have been. Where missions have gone 
with power, these doctrines have gone. Where 
great sacrifices have been made, great churches 
organized, great movements originated, great im- 
pulses given to piety, great reformations accom- 
plished, the doctrines of the cross have inspired 
them. Whatever else, of mistake or superfluity, 
has been present, these have not been absent. 
So slight has been the prevalence, and so feeble has 
been the influence, of any system of religion which 
has left their vital substance out, that, however ex- 
cellent some of the individual characters it may 
have produced, it can scarcely be reckoned in 
among the palpable powers which have built up 
a Christendom, Think whatever we may of this 
fact, it is certainly a phenomenon which needs to 



35 

be accounted for by those who think a church could 
exist without these very peculiarities. It affords at 
least a presumption so strong in favor of the old 
and tried foundation-work of faith, as to challenge 
the consideration of every thoughtful person. How 
will you explain it, that the deniers of that founda- 
tion have been but an inefficient minority, on the 
borders of the Fold, aloof from the great enter- 
prises that evangelize the world ? However earn- 
est for social and moral improvement, the love of 
Christ and of souls, which lends life to the Church, 
and extends the kingdom, appears to flow in other 
channels. For a limited period, and on a limited 
scale, sects that have thrown off the distinctive 
principles on which the Church was founded may 
doubtless continue to bear many good fruits, by 
virtue of the hereditary impressions diffused abroad 
and Uving on, throughout the Christian world : just 
as a moving train will run, with considerable mo- 
mentum, long after the real impelling force is with- 
drawn. I will not speak especially of the signifi- 
cant circumstance that the more serious-minded and 
reverential members of such bodies must find them- 
selves embarrassed by an inevitable association 
with others who go far beyond them in denial 
and in laxity of both preaching and order, in- 
volving all under the same name in a fearful re- 
sponsibility for the most radical and 'disastrous 
error. When we ask whether the amount of be- 
hef on which these detached branches are now 
supported would have ever given life to the Church, 
converted nations, perpetuated sacraments, and com- 



36 

forted martyrs, how plain that it could no more have 
done that, than the brave but scattered individuals 
of a disorganized regiment could originate the dis- 
cipline and win the battles of an army under its 
banners, with its leader at its head ! 

A further attestation to these doctrines is fur- 
nished in the rehgious wants of the soul. God 
created that soul, wakened its wants, and revealed 
the doctrines. He has fitted the want and the sup- 
ply to each other. In that mutual fitness and ad- 
justment, I see a bright mark of mercy and of truth. 
I know how easy it is to deny the statement, and to 
evade the inference. There will be some to say 
that they are conscious of no such wants, and that 
all their inward necessities are met by other sys- 
tems, where these peculiarities are left out ; where 
there is no deep sense of depravity ; no atonement 
for it on the Cross ; no regeneration by the Holy 
Ghost. But this does not affect, in the least, our 
confidence that after all, when the soul really comes 
to itself, it does hunger after just this Bread from 
Heaven. The convicted conscience does stretch 
out its feeble and longing hands for just this blessed 
relief, found nowhere else but here. Not only does 
the Bible compel us to believe it, and history com- 
pel us to believe it, but experience holds us fast to 
the same conclusion, and nothing can shake it. 
When the spirit is moved to its deepest places, this 
is its cry. When life grows serious and earnest, 
this is its demand. When all the false lights and 
glimmering gayeties of prosperous days and eager 
blood begin to fade, this is the deep, strong confes- 



37 

sioii. There is no real rest but in an all-sufficient 
Saviour who lifts the guilt away, mighty to save 
because Almighty. We cannot trace out, with our 
iaipotent analysis, all the reasons and elements of 
this profound necessity. But the fact we know. 
From all human comforters, from all rationalistic 
interpretations, from all easy and flattering substi- 
tutes, homesick and repentant humanity comes back, 
at the last, to sit down at the foot of the Cross, by 
the fountain that is opened for its sin and unclean- 
ness. And what is best for human sorrow, we may 
be sure is best also for human joy. In Christ 
Jesus, saith the Apostle, they that rejoice shall be 
as though they rejoiced not, and they that weep as 
though they w^ept not, because a peace, which is 
neither of the world's sorrow nor yet of its joy, pos- 
sesses them. "My peace," saith Emmanuel, " I give 
unto you ; not as the w^orld giveth give I unto you." 
For the truth is, these very doctrines, w^hicli are 
sometimes superficially put aside as having nothing 
practical in them, are the basis, and the root, and 
the inner life, of all the vital Christian practice in 
the world. Men admire the fair moralities, the 
even-handed integrity, the open-handed charity, the 
clean-handed purity, which adorn and strengthen 
society. Give us these, they say, and why should 
we care for doctrine ? And so, going into your 
garden in autumn, you might say, with just the 
same measure of wisdom : Here are rich and 
golden fruits hanging on the boughs ; this is all we 
desire ; why need we care for the roots far down in 
the dark ground, and the juices iu their hidden 



38 



channels under the bark, and the seed that was 
planted long ago? Yet never grew the stock or the 
fruit of one practical virtue under the sun, but 
somewhere beneath it, and before it came, lay a 
doctrine. Christendom is but an orchard of which 
the creeds of the Church are the sap, and of which 
the holy doctrines of Evangelists and Apostles are 
the living principle and power. 

Does your mind need the infinite and Vernal 
and absolute Mind to satisfy its aspirations and an- 
swer to its call, when it feels upward in adoration 
after the " Maker of heaven and earth ? " That is 
the practical side of the first article of the Christian 
creed, — faith in God the Father who hath created 
us. 

Does your heart, stricken with bitter repentances, 
see and feel in agony that it is sinful through and 
through, and that there is no health in it, and no 
hope for it, but as that Maker comes to it as a 
Saviour, clothed in its own human flesh, weeping its 
bitter human tears, suffering in its stead and for its 
sake, and mercifully bearing all its sicknesses and 
corruption clean away ? That is the practical side 
of the second article of the Christian creed, — 
faith in God the Son who hath redeemed us. 

Does your spirit, failing often to follow this Divine 
Master, coming short of its due service to him, torn 
with doubt, darkened with bereavement and afllic- 
tion, long for some present, inward sign and assur- 
ance that this Maker and this Saviour, unseen in 
heaven, have not forgotten or forsaken it, but love 
and pity it still ? That is the practical side of the 



39 

third article of the Christian creed, — faith in God 
the Holy Ghost, proceeding from the Father and 
the Son, who sanctifieth and comforteth us. 

Now here, in simple words, answering, I am sure, 
to real desires in loving and suffering breasts, are the 
practical parts of that gracious and glorious doctrine 
of our Gospel, — the Triunity of God. On that three- 
fold stock, and out from it, have grown, and will 
grow, the beautiful and blessed fruits of holiness : 
not a worldly righteousness ; not a morality which 
terminates in earthly relations and motives ; but the 
spiritual, disinterested, sanctified righteousness which 
is of Christ, and the scriptural morality which has 
piety for its elder brother. And when so much of 
the Creed is alive within you, you will be ready, 
please God, to go on and find unexpected treasures 
of light, rich and encouraging, in the remainder of 
it : faith in " the Holy Catholic Church," not scat- 
tered, fragmentary, solitary groups of individual 
behevers, but one visible Body of this indwelling 
Christ ; faith " in the communion of saints," begun 
in this Church visible, and fulfilled in the sinless 
Church triumphant ; faith in " the forgiveness of 
sins " which cling yet to our imperfect lives ; faith 
in " the resurrection of the body," that this outer 
tabernacle may share in the redemption and rejoice 
in the world to come ; faith in " the life everlasting," 
where the children of the resurrection, sons and 
daughters of the Father, redeemed by Christ, sanc- 
tified by the Spirit, shall render the service of prayer 
and praise forever. 

Will you not be persuaded that in this faith is a 



40 

blessing unspeakable for you, and, through God's 
promises, for jour children after jou ? Can you 
deny that this faith is what the Scriptures reveal ? 
Can you deny that it is in this common faith that 
the Christian Church has lived and grown? Can 
you deny that something in you, quite beyond the 
operations and explanations of your mind, speaks in 
a voice of pleading power, and says, — " This is the 
way, walk ye in it " ? Could all preconceptions and 
prejudices die in you this hour, would not this har- 
monious and satisfying cluster of holy truths rise in 
clearness and comfort on your waiting, uplifted eyes ? 

And then if you should be drawn into that Com- 
munion of believers, which is at once preeminently 
scriptural in its services, apostolical in its order, 
permanent in its standards, catholic in its terms of 
fellowship, reverent and yet social and responsive in 
its modes of w^orship, conservative and genial in its 
tastes, extending the blessing of benignant covenants 
over the young, bringing its churchly spirit and 
work into gracious connection and adjustment with 
all the stages of human life, and all the conditions 
of human society, — a complete and harmonious 
system of holy living, whose decent ways disclose 
their beauty and their heavenly direction more and 
more, the longer they are trodden, through the 
bright circles of the " Christian year," — then how 
great would be your privilege and your thanks- 
giving ! 

Finally, some reader may possibly say, " Give 
me some plain rules, that my doubts may vanish, 
and my way be open." 



41 

My friend, there is one and only one Guide able 
to answer that demand, and to satisfy you with his 
salvation. The friendliest and most effectual help 
any mortal kindness can render you, is to point you 
and encourage you to go directly to him. He 
speaks three words of counsel : — 

1. "• Come " ; come to me ! That means the lay- 
ing aside of ail pride, all party -feeling, all worldly 
shame, all sectarian attachment, all fear of reproach, 
ridicule, hardship, all love of unhallowed pleasures 
and comforts. " Come." It means that you should 
do what the blind man did, — arise, put forth an 
effort, leave the old place, draw near with an open 
heart. " Come." 

2. " Follow " ; follow your Leader ! That means 
the trying of these doctrines, to see what they will 
do for you. Treat them as if they were true. 
Certainly, the immense preponderance of the Chris- 
tian world in their favor will warrant you in that. 
Try them. You have tried other views, and they 
have not thoroughly satisfied you. Try these. Go 
where they are held and proclaimed. Worship 
where they are the life and spirit of the worship. 
Live where they are lived. Breathe their atmos- 
phere. Let their spiritual fragrance and nurture 
enter naturally into you, till you know them not by 
the vexing and harsh way of controversy or argu- 
ment, but, as all spiritual realities must be known, 
by the contact of the heart, and the wilHng consent 
of the life. Follow in them. Try and prove them. 

3. '' Ask " ; " ask, and ye shall receive." Ac- 
company your coming and your following with 



42 

prayer. Pray, not that some forgone conclusion 
or favorite theory may be established, but that the 
truth as it is in Jesus may be shown you ; that you 
may see all his glory, and confess the fulness of 
his grace. Pray that when you open the Bible, 
the Holy Spirit may lighten both the page and 
your mind, that you may behold all the wondrous 
things revealed. Pray that your own experience 
may be interpreted to you there. Pray to God 
your Father when your filial feeling goes out to- 
ward him. Pray to God the Holy Ghost, when 
you yearn for the Comforter and the Sanctifier. 
And when the sen.-e of your sinfulness and your 
weakness overpowers you, and your whole nature 
supplicates for cleansing and for pardon, pray to 
God the Son, your Saviour, who has promised, saith 
St. John, "I will do it." Pray, as the long Ime 
of witnesses have prayed, confessing, — 

" Thy Promise is my only plea, 
With this I venture nigh; 
Thou callest burdened souls to thee, 
And such, O Lord, am I. 

" Be thou my shield and hiding-place, 
That, sheltered near thy side, 
I may my fierce accuser face. 
And tell him ' Thou hast died.' 

" O wondrous love ! to bleed and die, 
To bear the cross and shame. 
That guilty sinners, such as I, 
Might plead thy gracious name ! " 



THE CHUIICH MONTHLY 

■ i^NTERS with the January number upon its second 
-■-^ year, with renewed confidence in the disposition 
and ability of our community to support a religious pub- 
lication at once temperate and earnest. While it will 
be the avowed and consistent aim of the Magazine to 
present the claims of the Protestant Episcopal Church 
to the esteem and love of the American people, care 
will at the same time be taken to avoid a polemical and 
controversial tone. It will be held wiser to affirm than 
to deny ; better to build up than to pull down. 

It will be one object of the Monthly to do away, as 
far as may be, with the reproach of bitterness and parti- 
sanship which now rests on the religious press. A manly 
adherence to maturely formed convictions will, of course, 
be observed, but at the same time a kindly and consid- 
erate respect for the opinions of all Christian men will 
not be neglected. In a word, it will be the endeavor of 
the Monthly to be just, generous, and catholic. 

The Editorial Board consists of — 



1 



Rev. F. D. Huntington, D. D., 
Rev. George M. Randall, D. D., 
Rev. George S. Converse, 



COi 



Rev. J. I. T. CooLiDGE, Cn| 

Rev. Wm. R. Huntington, Office Editor. CT>: 



E. P. DUTTON & CO., S 

PUBLISHERS, 
106 Washington Street, Boston. 



